"Hi! My name is Ariana Kelly. I graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Literature and from the Bennington Writing Seminars with a M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction. I have taught 9, 10, 11th, and 12th grade English literature and Creative Writing for twenty-two years at some of the best independent schools in the country. Additionally, I have worked privately with students as a tutor in English, History, Anthropology, as well as for test prep, for seventeen years. In 2015, I published a book with Bloomsbury (a cultural study of communication), and I am currently just completing a collection of essays. I have essays, poems, and reviews out or forthcoming from select magazines.

As an educator, my primary goal is to create an environment in which students feel able and welcome to take risks—risks of creativity, thought, emotion, and opinion. To make students feel comfortable enough to take risks, I create highly structured lesson plans that offer different points of access to students with various skill levels and interests. I offer in-depth feedback from the macro to the micro level, from argument and analysis to grammar and style.

Just as I encourage students to slow down in their reading, taking the time to annotate and explore not just what the language says but also what it suggests, I urge students to think of writing as their opportunity to slow down and figure out what they really think about a text. In helping them focus on developing a singular idea, I like to emphasize that they are participating in a conversation that’s been happening for hundreds of years.

I look forward to working with you!" less...